Pentek provides board and system-level products that can be used for beamforming, communications, defense, recording, science and control, and software radio. Our customers have successfully implemented Pentek products in each of these areas.

Some customers use our products for research and development and others deploy them in the field. To make our products useful in as many applications as possible, Pentek offers a variety of ruggedization levels and form factors, including AMC, XMC, FMC, PMC, cPCI, PCIe, VPX and rackmount.

Beamforming is a signal processing technique that uses an array of sensors to achieve directionality, increase the strength of transmitted signals, and improve the quality of received signals. Beamforming applications span frequencies from sub-audio to light, and encompass a diverse range of critical applications for commerce, industry, government, and defense.

Pentek offers products that include built-in beamforming IP to optimize application development. The IP includes programmable phase and gain adjustments, power meters, threshold detectors, interrupts, and output summation blocks. For larger systems, multiple Pentek boards can be chained together for summation across channels on multiple boards.

Putting FPGAs to Work for Software Radio HandbookWritten by Rodger Hosking, Vice President and Co-founder of Pentek

FPGAs have become an increasingly important resource for software radio systems. Programmable logic technology now offers significant advantages for implementing software radio functions such as DDCs (Digital Downconverters). Over the past few years, the functions associated with DDCs have seen a shift from being delivered in ASICs (Application-Specific ICs) to operating as IP (Intellectual Property) in FPGAs.

For many applications, this implementation shift brings advantages that include design flexibility, higher precision processing, higher channel density, lower power, and lower cost per channel. With the advent of each new, higher-performance FPGA family, these benefits continue to increase.

Pentek has developed clever solutions to pinpoint and explore multiband signals, optimize performance and data movement, increase channel count and board-level synchronization. Pentek solves these demanding application challenges with the latest technology and helps system providers accelerate their time to market.

Switched serial fabric systems connect devices together to support multiple simultaneous data transfers. The raw speed of serial fabrics is governed by three factors: the serial bit clock frequency; the channel coding efficiency; and the number of lanes or parallel bit streams ganged together in the interface. This handbook helps system designers compare and contrast different types of serial fabrics to narrow down the best available links and protocols for their high-speed embedded system application.

Modern, high-tech telecom and computing solutions for the military and defense markets are based on real-time, integrated connectivity in the lab and in the field. Many of these deployed military systems must be built to withstand environmental extremes in temperature, humidity, air pressure, mechanical shock and vibration.

Over the years, Pentek has worked closely with its customers to develop a number of powerful, flexible and rugged solutions for deploying in a wide range of harsh environments. As the first to introduce board-level software radio solutions to the DOD, Pentek's years of SIGINT expertise allows our customers to leverage our decades of experience.

For each new military embedded computing challenge, Pentek offers the benefits of shorter development time, reduced costs, mature software development tools and improved life cycle support that our customers can depend on.

Putting VPX and OpenVPX to Work HandbookWritten by Rodger Hosking, Vice President and Co-founder of Pentek

OpenVPX presents a formal, well-organized system for defining all components in VPX systems. Numerous "profiles" for boards, slots and backplanes that detail specific configurations of channels, interconnections and fabrics are explained in this handbook. Designers can browse through these standardized profiles to find one that satisfies the objectives of each new system. By narrowing the field of configurations, these profiles boost reusability and interoperability among vendors.

With the latest high-speed A/D converters operating in the Gigahertz range and beyond, real-time signal recording for embedded applications has become a challenging feat that requires specialized hardware and intelligent application software. Real-time recording applications require the ability to move data at a very high rate to the latest generation of high-capacity disk drives with the data secured for pre and post analysis in the lab or in the field.

Pentek's Talon® high-speed real-time recording systems are designed to satisfy the requests of engineers and program managers looking for complete system solutions that are ready to run right out of the box. The Talon recorder line, delivers easy-to-use, reliable and proven systems that can be used in the lab or deployed in the field using the portable or rugged lines. The Talon recorders utilize analog front-ends and with the new digital I/O solutions, the Talon recorders are even closer to the application signal path.

Pentek's SystemFlow® recording software features a Windows-based GUI that provides a simple and intuitive means to configure and control a Talon recorder system. The SystemFlow software includes signal viewing and analysis tools that allow the user to monitor the signal prior to and during recording, as well as examine the signal during playback. Users can store custom configurations as profiles for single-click setup and the C-callable API allows users to integrate the recorder into a larger system.

The SystemFlow Simulator allows you to learn how to use the Talon recording system's SystemFlow software interface before you acquire a recorder. The Simulator can simulate the operating environment of all the different Talon recorder models.

In today's world of high-speed A/D converters real-time signal recording has become a challenging task that requires specialized hardware and intelligent application software. When designing a real-time recorder capable of streaming sustained data to disk, the system developer has to consider the limitations presented by the recorder's operating and file systems, the limitations of disk drive technology, the hardware interfaces, and the RAID controller technology.

Faced with demands for faster time-to-market with lower cost and higher quality, electronics manufacturers must focus on improving processes, increasing productivity, retaining customers and enhancing flexibility. Pentek can help bridge the gap between mainstream technology and customer requirements by leverage our software and hardware to complete their projects on time and under budget.

Pentek excels at identifying technology trends and architecting adaptable, long-term solutions that satisfy our customer needs not just for today, but well into the future. We have the expertise to meet the most demanding system integration challenges to keep our customer's program ahead of schedule and allow them to focus on developing their applications.

Critical Techniques for High-Speed A/D Converters In Real-Time Systems HandbookWritten by Rodger Hosking, Vice President and Co-founder of Pentek

Markets for high-speed A/D converters are significant in size and many are growing rapidly. New markets emerge regularly based on A/D technology advances, lower costs, and higher density solutions in smaller packages. This handbook will review sampling techniques, FPGA technology and the latest Pentek high-speed A/D products and applications.

Software defined radio (SDR) allows much of what was done on predefined hardware, such as signal processing, to be programmed in software. SDR enabled devices have the ability to change how and where they operate within the radio spectrum, moving among a set of frequency bands in response to interference and where the device can autonomously make decisions about its operation, in response to environmental changes. These capabilities enable SDRs to vary waveforms and frequencies within their hardware constraints, as well as to reconfigure the operation of their network protocols.

Pentek's board and system level implementations aim to solve the two most challenging issues facing over-the-air communications today: compatibility and spectrum usage. The software defined radio communications industry requires flexible signal processing capabilities to support many waveform types simultaneously, to host complex, special-purpose waveforms, and detect and cancel interference using digital techniques.

As the software radio industry matures, the demand for these technologies will grow as military, civilian, and commercial users take advantage of its increased reliability and capacity. Pentek's expertise enables our customers to have the flexibility to design and offer differentiated solutions to their most challenging programs.

Software Defined Radio HandbookWritten by Rodger Hosking, Vice President and Co-founder of Pentek

Software Defined Radio has revolutionized electronic systems for a variety of applications that include communications, data acquisition and signal processing. Recently updated, this handbook shows how DDCs (Digital Downconverters), the fundamental building block of software radio, can replace legacy analog receiver designs while offering significant performance, density, and cost benefits.

With greater emphasis on emerging wideband standards to handle both voice and data traffic, cellular telephony requires high speed A/D and D/A converters operating at rates of 100 MHz and beyond. New algorithms to optimize signal-to-noise performance and reduce bit error rates are often best implemented in FPGAs (field programmable gate arrays). High channel density digital receivers with fast tuning and programmable bandwidths can accommodate multiple standards using the same hardware platform.

Pentek can help with our high-performance multicomputer solutions that address the compute density and capacity challenges facing wireless system architects as they design the next generation of wireless networks.

In order to address the Electronic Countermeasure (ECM) threat to vital radar and communication technology, adaptable solutions are required for an increasingly complex electromagnetic environment. Pentek is committed to overcoming customer's technological challenges, handling known, emerging and future threats in a variety of environments to provide next-generation capabilities and performance.

Customers can rely on our depth of knowledge to provide consistently cutting-edge solution packages tailor made to match their individual requirements.

Electronic Surveillance is an invaluable tool in this era of high-speed, global communications and presents new challenges. Digital communications technology has outpaced the abilities of many traditional law enforcement and government agencies.

Electronic Warfare (EW) has become a military discipline within itself with an image of being black box magic, but in reality the vast majority of techniques involve clever application of established electrical engineering principles. Radar and communications are pivotal components in any modern defense system which imposes an implicit need to design these electronic systems with these aspects of electronic battle.

EW systems require high performance, throughput, and scalability, with the flexibility to reconfigure and upgrade systems for real-time multi-mission profiles. These attributes are provided cost-effectively by scalable, commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) computer equipment. Pentek offers a broad range of solutions and technologies to answer these requirements.

Present-day military communications are built to encrypt and decode transmissions using signal processing tasks include demodulation, decoding and extraction of a digital signal stream while surviving rough treatment in hostile environments.

Pentek's aim is creating state-of-the-art Software Defined Radio solutions for secure wireless wide band networks, Communication, Navigation and Identification (CNI) avionic systems and COMINT technologies. Abilities developed over the years and in collaboration with industry leaders and universities have made it possible to deliver turnkey products, systems and solutions that can can be integrated to support land, satellite, naval, avionics, professional and civil applications.

Pentek has aided many of national laboratories to help advance, understand and improve studies in the state of science in nuclear physics. Pentek's high-performance FPGA and gigabit serial based products have been key in the advancement of Nuclear physics accelerator technology and Pentek's cutting edge designs offer many cost-effective solutions that can be used well into the future.

Demanding radar applications require high-bandwidth A/D converters with sampling rates up to 100 MHz and higher, extremely fast data transfer paths to store and process data with triggering or gating circuitry to digitize pulse waveforms at precisely the right time.

In some cases, a wideband digital receiver is required to translate the IF signal down to baseband and signal processing handled with fast, fixed-point engines. In addition to Pentek's unique approach and delivery of high-performance I/O for radar applications, Pentek has been successful at implementing many FPGA IP solutions specifically for radar requirements.

Pentek high-speed real-time recording systems are designed to satisfy the requests of engineers and program managers looking for complete solutions. With easy-to-use and understand, graphical interfaces, recording systems provide engineers with field-ready recording and playback capabilities.

The high-speed real-time recording systems eliminate the time and risk associated with new technology system development. With increasing pressure in both the defense and commercial arenas to get to the market first, today's system engineers are looking for more complete off-the-shelf subsystem offerings.

To learn more about Pentek's Talon® RTV, RTS, RTR and RTX series recording systems including rackmount, portable and rugged systems with supporting SystemFlow® software, click here.

The SystemFlow Simulator allows you to learn how to use the Talon recording system's SystemFlow software interface before you acquire a recorder. The Simulator can simulate the operating environment of all the different Talon recorder models.

In today's world of high-speed A/D converters real-time signal recording has become a challenging task that requires specialized hardware and intelligent application software. When designing a real-time recorder capable of streaming sustained data to disk, the system developer has to consider the limitations presented by the recorder's operating and file systems, the limitations of disk drive technology, the hardware interfaces, and the RAID controller technology.

As satellite lifetimes increase and their functionality continues to evolve, the need to necessitate a hardware platform that can evolve without developing a new system on each change also grows. Software defined radio technology offers the required flexibility to solve these complex challenges.

The digital functions enabling this technology include reconfigurable hardware components that implement advanced data acquisition front ends capable of digitizing an IF signal followed by a digital down conversion to baseband with signal processing tasks include demodulation, decoding and extraction of a digital signal stream. Pentek has over hundred product offerings to choose from to find exactly what fits your application needs.

SIGINT is actually a broad discipline under which multiple sub-disciplines fall including COMmunications INTelligence (COMINT), ELectronic INTelligence (ELINT), and Foreign Instrumentation Signals INTelligence (FISINT). Signals intelligence satellites are designed to detect transmissions from broadcast communications systems such as radios, as well as radars and other electronic systems.

The interception of such transmissions can provide information on the type and location of the signal. Pentek provides high-density boards and high-speed real-time recording system solutions with high-channel counts and bandwidths to advance technology for signals intelligence applications.

Telecom systems are characterized by their rapid evolution in terms of components and applications with the introduction of new data services where voice previously dominated in mobile communication. In a few years, voice traffic should represent a minority of the global traffic, while new data applications including text data (SMS) and video data will continue to expand requiring ever increasing bandwidths to transport these streams.

Telecom applications involve data acquisition ranging from audio through RF, depending on the application, and often require algorithms for decoding, echo cancellation, compression and decompression using both fixed- and floating-point processors. Pentek provides embedded computing board and high-speed real-time recording system solutions that have been successfully implemented to test, improve and develop new wireless standards and technologies.

Wireless networking is used to meet a variety of needs. One common use is in mobile networks that connect via satellite. A wireless transmission method is a logical choice to network a LAN segment that must frequently change locations, span a distance beyond the capabilities of typical cabling, avoid obstacles such as physical structures, EMI, or RFI, provide a backup communications link in case of normal network failure and to remotely connect mobile users or networks.

Pentek has an abundance of data acquisition, signal processing and recording solutions to meet the needs of wireless networking.

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